infamous

Reading that we will beat Cyprus away, Kazakhstan at home and Bulgaria at home makes me wonder where this confidence comes from? 38% Win Rate from Euro 2012 qualifying up until today (6 games into 2020). Up against teams in Pot 1, 2, 3 our winning % is 17% (4 wins from 23). Up against Pot 4,5,6 our winning % is 60%. We talk about not meeting expectations and blaming our managers. But at some point we have to accept that we are a low Pot 3/ high pot 4 football nation and do not have the cattle to make tournaments. The SPFL has 2 Europa League Pot 2/3 level sides, the rest of the competition is regularly eliminated in qualifying by the second, third and 4th best sides from Lithuania, Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Malta etc. Pot 3 Sides for Euro 2020 Qualifying and their history since 1998. Slovakia R16 World Cup 2010, Round of 16 Euro 2016 Turkey Quarter Final Euro 2000, Semi Final 2002 WC, Semi Final Euro 2008, GS Euro 2016 Republic of Ireland R16 2002 WC, GS Euro 2012, R16, Euro 2016 Northern Ireland R16 Euro 2016 Scotland DNQ Norway GS Euro 2000 Serbia R16 Euro 2000, GS 2006 WC, GS 2010 WC, GS 2018 WC Finland DNQ Bulgaria GS Euro 2004 Israel DNQ

"Big Players" is a good title. Quiet confident no more than 2 of our players would make the Russian starting eleven. None would make the Belgium starting eleven. Was flicking through my Panini world cup collection (1970-2018) and my 1990 World Cup Orbis (Some might remember it), looked at our squads and the real difference I could see was ~5 players had leadership qualities and were influential at decent clubs (At the time).

Underachieved in the past, should be performing better in present but making tournaments is not our level, if we finished third with four losses (Russia x2, Belgium x 2), i would say that is what I would expect. Now though.... not sure... if we will finish above where we are. We must win against Kazakhstan and Cyprus to regain confidence for the playoffs, should we fail to win those, it's curtains.

Not even where it starts. The SPFL is ranked 20th in Europe (Up from 26th a few seasons back). Weaker than the Cyprus league. Our teams (Outside Celtic and Rangers) regularly fail to qualify for the Europa League. Aberdeen and Kilmarnock are already out. Look at the past five or so seasons Aberdeen, 3rd Round Qualifying UEL (Knocked out by Apollon Limassol - Cyprus) Rangers, 1st round Europa League qualifying (Knocked out by a team from Luxemborg) St Johnstone - 1st Round Europa League qualifying (Knocked out by the third best side in Lithuania) Heart of Midlothian - 2nd round UEL qualifying (Knocked out by the third best side from Malta) Aberdeen, 3rd round UEL qualifying (Knocked out by second best side in Kazakhstan) Inverness, 2nd round UEL qualifying (Knocked out by third best Romanian side) St Johnstone, 1st round UEL qualifying (Knocked out by second best Armenian side). This is how much the league has slowed down, in the early 2000's the SPFL managed to break into the top 10. From the late 90's to mid 2000's we hovered in the top 15. Now we are lucky to break into the top 20.

Depends what you mean by old days, when Euros was a 16 team tournament second is play off. Under the new system (24 teams qualifying.. which is almost half of Europe), 3rd place would get you a play off, I don't think we will finish 3rd in this group. Thank fuck for the Nations League.

Yep from memory drew with Germany. We also drew with Germany in the qualifying campaign one year earlier. Cool post/thread. Love looking at stats such as this one.

Vogts era wasn't bad in hindsight it was more of a "What if" for me. I feel our expectations at the time were different (made 5 of the last 6 World Cups, 2 of the last 3 Euros). The other reason it was a dud was the fact we dropped 2 points against Faroe Islands and 3 against Lithuania... had we won those we would have topped the group and qualified directly. We had some highs and some massive lows. Highs 1-0 against Netherlands first leg of the play offs 1-1 with Germany Lows 0-6 return leg of play offs against the Dutch 2-2 Faroe Islands 0-1 loss to Lithuania This campaign has all been lows and no highs.

I also used "us" to start the sentence. I guess in writing I disassociated myself from our current team. Tough waking up at 445am to catch our games.

The Russians were largely lethargic, always going to score though. These regular qualifying teams know how to get it done.

I have bet against us in every game except the San Marino match this campaign. They win I am happy (See Cyprus), they lose at least I made some money (See Kazakhstan).

Need to improve the cohesion by playoffs, whenever we play anyone half decent it looks like we grabbed a few lads off the street and had them play for the first time together.

Take me back to December where we got confident for beating some minnows and thought we could compete in a group with the 3rd and 8th best sides at the World Cup that year

Even if we somehow (And it won't happen) won against Belgium and then won in Moscow we will still need Russia to lose another two games. I know you are just hypothesizing and realise it is over. We will lose tonight, Russia will win against Kazakhstan and that's it. Russia will most likely need to win 1 of their remaining 4 games (Scotland[H], Cyprus[A], Belgium[H], San Marino[A]).

Sorry, question, why are we playing in Oslo? Are we not the higher ranked side in the seeding?

Norway and Serbia would be hard. Norway just been gritty all playoffs, Serbia have a good team on paper and could have there shit back together by playoffs.

They are not world beaters but I feel they are underrated. Lets remember they did make the Quarters of the World Cup (I don't care if they were home, they were missing 6 starters at the World Cup). The Russians regularly qualify for tournaments, every few tournaments or so they go on a good run (Euro 2008, World Cup 2018). Our team is not great at all, just because we don't follow the RPL/ know their players doesn't mean it is a farmers league (Rated 6th in Europe, 2 Automatic UCL group stage spots and 1 Qualifying spot). Most of the players have regular UCL experience with knockout experience in the UCL or regular deep Europa League runs. A lot of the players have turned down EPL moves. Outside of McTominay and Robertson a lot of the players are at stronger clubs than ours. Hence it was obvious they were a level above us and could turn it on when needed.

Ahh the optimism after losing to Belgium

I honestly don't think they froze, feel they fought, just faced a better side who turned it on when they needed to.

The funny thing is we are tied with them on the FIFA Rankings. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Russia Euro 2008 - 3rd World Cup 2010 - DNQ Euro 2012 - 9th World Cup 2014 - 24th Euro 2016 - 23rd World Cup 2018 - 8th Euro 2020 - Qualified(likely) Scotland Euro 2008 - DNQ World Cup 2010 - DNQ Euro 2012 - DNQ World Cup 2014- DNQ Euro 2016 - DNQ World Cup 2018 - DNQ Euro 2020 - Playoff

More likely the manager (Have you seen him haha? He actually was in goal last time we played them for Euro 1996 Qualies) gave them a kick up the backside. I have watched all our opponents matches in this campaign (Russia included), that first 45minutes was the poorest I saw this Russia side play (Granted it was 5 qualifiers and their World Cup games). They just needed to turn it on for 20 or so minutes to take care of business. You could tell they had an extra gear.

Partly because the Russians started slow knowing they need to weather the storm in the opening 15-20. Once everything settled down they worked their way into the match and took over. We will keep it close with Belgium, park the bus, offer nothing going forward (We offered little tonight). People will then applaud an amazing effort. This is why the Belgium game was nothing to go off, parking the bus vs needing a win are two different things. Every time the Russians came forward tonight it looked like they may score.

This sport is simply not in our DNA lol.

Will they put up more against us or San Marino (4-0) lol. Who would have thought by round 5 after the Nations League hype we would already be out of it. Kazakhstan have a better chance to catch the Russians.

Not a superpower that's for sure. Criminally underachieving though, the entire squad pretty much plays for top sides in Europe's sixth best league. Regularly make major tournaments, have a good run occasionally too (Euro 2008 - Semi Final, World Cup 2018 Quarter Final). Funny they didn't even call up their leading goal scorer (Chalov) for the match.

We were lucky to only lose 1-2 to be honest. Having watched most qualifying games in our group, I would say that was the poorest the Russia side has looked and they still seemed quiet comfortable and unlucky not to win by more. We are simply awful, but somewhat expected. I actually thought we might grab a draw today going into it. Typical delusion.